Daimler Adds Shift at Hungary Plant to Make More Compacts

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- Mercedes-Benz, the world’s third-largest maker of luxury vehicles, is adding a third shift at a
plant in Hungary to keep up with demand for its compact cars.

The extra shift at the factory in Kecskemet will start in
May, Stuttgart, Germany-based parent company Daimler AG said
today in a statement. The plant, which makes the van-like B-Class and the CLA four-door coupe, will continue to produce on
selected Saturdays in 2014 after adding work on the weekend day
last year.

“Our production has hardly kept up with the dynamic sales
development of our compacts,” Chief Executive Officer Dieter
Zetsche said in the statement. “This allows us to serve the
wishes of our customers around the world even better and
timelier.”

The extra shift in Kecskemet follows other moves by
Mercedes to boost production of entry-level vehicles. In October
2012, Mercedes added a third shift to a factory in Rastatt,
Germany, that makes the A-Class hatchback, the GLA compact
sport-utility vehicle and the B-Class. Finnish manufacturer
Valmet Automotive Inc. began building the A-Class for Mercedes
last year under a contract to produce more than 100,000 of the
model through 2016.

The compacts are key to Zetsche’s goal for Mercedes to
surpass Munich-based Bayerische Motoren Werke AG in sales by the
end of the decade.

Daimler employed about 3,400 people at the Kecskemet site
at the end of 2013, and staffing will increase with the
additional shift, said Sebastian Wahle, a company spokesman. The
factory produced about 109,000 cars last year.

Mercedes’s global vehicle sales have risen faster than at
its premium-segment competitors in recent months, boosted by
demand for the compact vehicles. Sales of the cars jumped 30
percent in the first two months of 2014, fueling a 17 percent
gain for the brand.